An Illustrated Life – Book Review
At the beginning of the year I found myself in a couple of uninspired positions, including an empty sketchbook and dried up palette. Over the past couple of months, in an attempt to recharge the drawn and painted batteries I’ve been searching for what it is that has inspired or prompted other artists. More specifically, what do their sketchbooks, letters, and scraps of drawings look like? What were they thinking during the slow times as well as the explosive times? In the process I’ve picked up a couple of books that have reignited some of my creative exploration.
At the moment I’m about halfway through An Illustrated Life by Danny Gregory, and the inspiration to sketch all day every day is overwhelming. There seem to be a couple of cliches with many of the artists featured (a lot of New Yorkers, scribbling away in their Moleskines while waiting for the subway or train), but the work is so wide ranging in both content and talent. It has reminded me that I can really put whatever I want down in my sketchbook. I’m the type of person who’d like to have a couple of guidelines for my sketchbook (otherwise it’d be filled with grocery and to do lists), and it seems like with a little bit of thought and a lot of passion is really all you need to keep a sketchbook. Some of my sketchbook “rules” are:
1. No tearing out of pages – even if it’s incredibly terrible. If it really kills me I’ll gesso over it and draw something else.
2. Use every page. This is a new one since I’ve never finished an entire book, so it’s really more of a goal this time around.
3. Sketchbook is only for sketching and some supplementary writing. Unless it has something to do with the drawings on the pages it belongs in my separate journal. Some things have to be entirely private and other people look through my sketchbooks occasionally.
Other than that I’m open for anything these days. Flipping through An Illustrated Life has sparked so many new ideas while reading that I’m torn between reading more or putting it down and running to my sketchbook. It’s great to see rough thoughts of other artists rather than elegantly finished pieces hanging in a gallery. The sketchbook is a platform for personal and raw ideas which often translate much clearer in their preliminary forms than in a final image. If you’ve got a couple of minutes it’s definitely a book to peel through at the bookstore or checkout for further investigation at the library.
